China Unicom, the country’s second-largest telecoms operator, will win a seat on the board of Telefónica, the big Spanish group, in the latest sign of China’s eagerness to invest in European and emerging market businesses.
In a regulatory filing in Madrid on Sunday, the two groups announced a deepening of their existing strategic co-operation agreement through a further mutual purchase of each other’s shares for $500m each.
The share purchases will take Telefónica’s stake in China Unicom to 9.7 per cent and China’s Unicom’s holding in the Spanish group to 1.37 per cent. Telefónica will propose the appointment of a China Unicom representative to its board at the next shareholders’ meeting.